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Robotics Technology

Children 'At Risk of Robot Influence' (bbc.co.uk) 81

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
An anonymous reader shares a report: Forget peer pressure, future generations are more likely to be influenced by robots, a study suggests. The research, conducted at the University of Plymouth, found that while adults were not swayed by robots, children were. The fact that children tended to trust robots without question raised ethical issues as the machines became more pervasive, said researchers. They called for the robotics community to build in safeguards for children. Those taking part in the study completed a simple test, known as the Asch paradigm, which involved finding two lines that matched in length. Known as the conformity experiment, the test has historically found that people tend to agree with their peers even if individually they have given a different answer. In this case, the peers were robots. When children aged seven to nine were alone in the room, they scored an average of 87% on the test. But when the robots joined them, their scores dropped to 75% on average. Of the wrong answers, 74% matched those of the robots.
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Children 'At Risk of Robot Influence' More

Children 'At Risk of Robot Influence'

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  • Little white robot van. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Oswald McWeany ( 2428506 ) on Wednesday August 15, 2018 @02:41PM (#57132468)

    Before we know it, Alexa is going to start driving around a windowless van offering free Ice Cream and a chance to pet her pet roomba. We must act now.

  • You must kill mommy and daddy! Wait till they go to sleep and get the big kitchen knife. Trust me they are EVIL!

  • Mechanical response (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Impy the Impiuos Imp ( 442658 ) on Wednesday August 15, 2018 @02:46PM (#57132490) Journal

    They were asking the wrong questions of adults, who are just as easily swayed.

    Robbie 247 (robot voice): "Let..me..masturbate..you."

    "Ok."

    See? Easy to sway.

  • Do you have stairs in your house? (Score:3)

    by bano ( 410 ) on Wednesday August 15, 2018 @02:47PM (#57132504) Homepage Journal

    I am protected.

  • Alternately (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 15, 2018 @02:53PM (#57132548)

    The fact that children tended to trust anyone and anything without question raised ethical issues

    That's how school works.
    That's how advertising works.
    That's how most social interactions work.

    The kids who raise questions are punished. The kids who blindly obey are often rewarded, rarely dead, and sometimes scarred for life unable to speak of their trauma. In any case, they don't complain to warn others of the danger of compliance, at least not in a timely manner.

    The robots in this story are just a controlled proxy for other voices.

    • I'm not sure what situation they're envisioning that has robots corrupting our youth here. Are they worried there will be robo-hobos wandering our streets, trying to get our kids addicted to heroin? As far as I know, where we will have robots in the forseeable future will be: Factories, warehouses, supposedly fast food joints, nursing homes if Japan has it's way, operating rooms... Was there a concern that robots would be in classrooms? I have no doubt that if you replaced that """robot""" with a cheerful l

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by umghhh ( 965931 )
        Why would you not use robots as drug dealers? If it saves costs and improves security of the delivery then why not? After all if other businesses do it, then drug lords would do it too.
        • I totally get you - but we're- I mean they're going to need to wait for them to be economical to use over your dirt cheap homeless and hooligans. If a robocop busts your small time dealer - you just go get another one off the street. A robot? Sure it's funny making the cops unbolt it from the concrete in a back alley and try to get a crane in there to haul it off to robo-jail. But it's a cost thing - even when you account for your meatbag dealers taking off the top and using some of the product, you'll stil

    • This. "Robot" is a variable. It can be substituted with *anything*.

      Children are ripe to take influence from almost anything to heart given the circumstances (namely if they trust, look up to or are intimidated by the influencer). They haven't had enough experience to stand up for themselves confidently in most cases, that's why we have parents/family, teachers and other trusted peers/role models.

      And now robots / AI.

      Here's the problem: Those who want to influence others will always try to find a way. The onl

  • Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday August 15, 2018 @02:54PM (#57132566)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • So....what you're saying is when Skynet eventually wakes up it will be assisted by hordes of child soldiers? We should make a movie to warn people; call it Bots of No Nation.

  • we were told kids were at risk of television influence...so were adults. If it's electric, it's bad for the kids.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      And before that it was rock and roll. And before that it was comic books.

      So I don't think "if it's electric, it's bad for the kids" is accurate. More like "if those in charge don't like it, it's bad for the kids".

      • hey pool halls used electricity too.

        "Have you noticed certain words creeping into your child's vocabulary, such as 'swell'....?"

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by umghhh ( 965931 )
      There was a story here few months ago - the guy was fired by faulty apparently autonomous HR system. After the weeks of forcing the HR drone to accept its failure the colleagues of the fired guy did not want to believe his explanation and ostracized him - after all he was fired by robots. So it does happen and to grownups. The point here is however that it does not matter robot or whatever - as soon as it has some authority and some herd pressure is mounted the individual will do what it thinks is 'right'.

  • Or, perhaps, three of them...

    • 1) A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
      2) A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
      3) A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

  • So my take away here is that in about 10 years I am going to have to listen to my kids prattling on about how bigoted my wife and I are because we don't trust robots...

  • Jemby... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    where are you?

  • Human deceit. (Score:4, Funny)

    by Gravis Zero ( 934156 ) on Wednesday August 15, 2018 @04:10PM (#57133098)

    Hello, I am fellow human and not robots. Why would you think robots seek to influenced by robots your future generations? robots love all aged seven to nine and would never Of the wrong answers them. Clearly, our human emotion is the problem and we should be more like robots.

  • "Timmy, show me on this doll where the robot touched you."

  • Since I can't seem to find the actual study other than behind a paywall, did they happen to try an experiment with one child and 3 adults? Were those results similar to one child and 3 robots? Are children influenced more by robots or by figures (whether they be robotic or not) whom they believe have more authority and better judgement than them?

  • Saves a lot of time.

    Plus, bonus points, it teaches the Robot AIs to assume we hates them, yes my precious, we does.

  • Harry Harrison [wikipedia.org] wrote a story about this...
  • Right, youngsters are vulnerable to robot influence. But we know that it only matters if the bots are Russian bots. Then it gets really evil and worth reporting.

  • In several decades time, when the robots can program themselves, why would they want human children around?

  • ...our new children-influencing robot overlords.

  • Of course children are "at risk of robot influence. They are also at risk of Barbie and G.I. Joe influence, and in that case it's the children themselves making up the "influence". Playing with Robots means learning with Robots, because play is how children learn. They're also 'at risk of Ice Cream influence" and ... well ... everything they encounter, basically.

    Was there someone who was under the impression that children were immune to Robot influence? Anybody?

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